Breaking News

Plane Crashes; 18 Dead

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

JASON CARROLL, CNN ANCHOR: A charter plane carrying 18 people onboard has crashed in Aspen, Colorado. All 18 people onboard were killed.

Right now, you're looking at some pictures that we got into our newsroom early this morning.

The plane crashed during snowy weather, at about 7:00 p.m. Mountain time.

Witnesses at the scene said the plane was in a strange position before it crashed into a hillside. Its nose, apparently, was facing up just before the crash.

LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: We can tell you we have no word of any distress call from the pilot, so investigators will just have to figure out what happened to this plane, because we do not know why it crashed at this point.

It was a Gulfstream III. I can tell you it was owned by Cinergi Pictures Entertainment, out of California.

And as Jason mentioned, we don't know who was onboard, but I can tell you there were 15 passengers and three crewmembers.

It, actually, originated out of Burbank, California, stopped at Los Angeles International Airport, to pick up some passengers, and was heading on to Aspen, and again, that's when the crash happened, just shy of the Aspen Airport.

Now, we are taking in more news on this by the minute. We're hoping to have a press conference at 7:00 a.m. Eastern time, and we're hoping to get more details on what happened at that point.

CNN will have coverage of that news conference for you when it happens.

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